How does the 1st Red Scare compare to the 2nd Red Scare?
1st Red Scare compare to 2nd Red Scare
Both nationwide panics occurred in an immediate postwar period, when the public was calling for a "return to normalcy." In both cases, constitutional rights were severely abused in the process of discriminating against radicals, communists, and anarchists.
The first Red Scare began following the Bolshevik Russian Revolution of 1917 and the intensely patriotic years of World War I as anarchist and left-wing social agitation aggravated national, social, and political tensions.
The second Red Scare occurred after World War II (1939–45), and was popularly known as "McCarthyism" after its most famous supporter and namesake,Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthyism coincided with increased popular fear of communist espionage consequent to a Soviet Eastern Europe, the Berlin Blockade (1948–49), the Chinese Civil War, the confessions of spying for the Soviet Union given by several high-ranking U.S. government officials, and the Korean War.